Emma 51-55: “Sharing is Caring”
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We've reached the final section of Emma! In this episode we're sharing our thoughts on happy endings, some colorful history, and a few last jabs at Mrs. Elton.
Transcript
Reclaiming Jane Season 4 Episode 11 | Emma 51-55: “Sharing is Caring”
Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.
Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers.
Emily: And I'm Emily Davis Hale.
Lauren: And today, we're reading chapters 51 through 55 with Emma through the theme of sharing.
Emily: At last, we have reached a section of Emma that doesn't have drama, and it's the very end.
Lauren: You know, it took us a while, but here we are. And what a payoff.
Emily: What a payoff. So beautiful. Everything comes together so nicely.
Lauren: It really does.
Emily: And we still get a little bit Austen humor.
Lauren: I love that about this book so much. It's why it's one of my favorite Austen novels and probably one of the reasons for so many other people too.
Emily: I'll refrain from reconsidering my rankings until we do the wrap up of this book.
Lauren: Okay.
Emily: But yeah, it's definitely up there for me, I think.
Lauren: It's a good choice.
Emily: Mm. But before we talk about why we like this ending so much, why don't we go ahead and recap?
Lauren: Okey-doke.
Emily: You're up first. Are you prepared to lead us out of Emma?
Lauren: I sincerely hope so.
Emily: All right. 3, 2, 1, go.
Lauren: Emma finishes reading the letter from Frank Weston and immediately shares it with Mr. Knightley, who has lots of shady comments to say throughout the entire reading of the letter. They discuss how they're going to go about confirming their engagement with Emma's dad. Mr. Knightley offers to move to Hartfield so that Emma doesn't have to leave and go to Donwell, which she's a little bit iffy about at first, but then accepts. They have to convince her dad, he's a little bit iffy about it. Frank and Jane are perfectly happy.
Oh my gosh. Mrs. Weston had a baby. [00:02:00] It's very cute. Frank and Knightley or Frank and Knightley, three couples get married. Everyone's happy at the end and Harriet gets married.
I thought I had way more time than I did.
Emily: No, you did not.
Lauren: Whoops.
Emily: As always, we get to the, the five second countdown and panic sets in.
Lauren: I was like, wait, wait. There were so many other things that happened. Let me just get to the important things. Okay. Emily?
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: Are you ready for your last recap of Emma?
Emily: I'm so ready.
Lauren: Okay. Three, two, one. Go.
Emily: Mr. Knightley has to read Frank Churchill's letter and gives an excellent running commentary about it. He also proposes that he move in at Hartfield for Mr. Woodhouse's sake. Harriet goes to London for a dentist and comes back engaged. Emma and Jane are like kind of friends now. Mrs. Weston has her baby and everyone is absolutely delighted. finally the news is out that Emma's night-- Emma and Knightley are engaged. and then everybody ends up happily ever after.
Lauren: you had multiple seconds left.
Emily: Yeah!
Lauren: Well done.
Emily: I I had a very, concise set of notes this week.
Lauren: Okay. Let's dive into this section.
Emily: Let's dive in.
Lauren: First of all, Diving right into the sharing theme. I cracked up over the fact that one of the very first things that happens in this section is Emma sharing the letter with Mr. Knightley. Without permission, by the way.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: She just assumes, Yeah, you know, Mr. Weston and Frank Churchill probably want Mr. Knightley to know this anyway and Knightley, you have to read it now because Mr. Weston's coming back and he's gonna want the letter back. So I know you've come over here to have a conversation, but this conversation now will center around this letter.
Emily: And then Mr. Knightley proceeds to share every single one of his thoughts as he's reading, which is very funny.
I really appreciate his running commentary on Frank's behavior and on how poorly he's treated Jane, and whether or not he's actually redeemed himself.
Lauren: Mr. Knightley does not believe he has.
Emily: He does not. [00:04:00]
Lauren: He's not convinced. He goes through and interjects throughout the entire thing because this is his way of spending time with Emma since she really wants him to read the letter.
He says, okay, I'll read it, but I'm going to just, you know, continue to give my commentary out loud as I read, which he then does after like every two sentences, he has something to say.
Emily: there's, there's some kind of inherent human connection over mutually commenting on somebody else's work.
Lauren: There is. I love seeing now that Knightley is able to be open in his expression for Emma, just how whipped this man is.
Emily: absolutely useless.
Lauren: He would bend over backwards to like get her a cube of sugar. It's ridiculous. I love it.
Emily: But also, before we go too far on that, what, Lauren knows exactly what I'm going for.
Lauren: I do.
Emily: Most of the audience probably does as well. I'm sorry. He's been in love with her since she was 13.
Lauren: 13!!
Emily: Like I even-- giving him the grace of, assuming that he's overstating that, or you know, in a retrospect changing the way he might have felt.
Lauren: He was being very specific.
Emily: 13, like doing the math on that when she was 13, she, he would've been roughly our age.
Lauren: Ugh.
Emily: I spent two hours yesterday with a bunch of sixth graders. Absolutely not. Never. Not in a million years.
Lauren: No, because they're children!
Emily: They're literal children. Those are infants. even if Emma was running the house at that age. Absolutely not.
Lauren: Just, yeah. Hard pass. Absolutely not.
Emily: Knightley. You have my severest judgment for this.
Lauren: Yeah. I can't get past that. I'm choosing to, if I want to think of anything as cute in the relationship of Knightley and Emma, to try and like remove that detail from my brain because otherwise... I can't enjoy it because I'm just reminded of the fact that you have been, you know, admiring, [00:06:00] lusting over, loving, whatever verb you choose to use in the situation. This person, since she was 13, and that introduces some uncomfortable questions into the narrative that I feel like deserved to be engaged with, but also, If I want to turn my brain off and say, oh, haha, fun love story. I don't want to .
Emily: Yeah, I'm just in retrospect going to have to kind of transmute that comment into like, he is admired and respected her since the age of 13. But like even that, I'm sorry, like no offense to 13 year olds. How do you have admiration and respect for that?
Lauren: It just, you can't, I'm sorry.
But like it has to be like, oh, you know what? I really admire like, your strength of mind for 13, because I remember how difficult it was not to succumb to peer pressure when I was 13. That I can admire in a 13 year old.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: I don't admire them as a future romantic prospect because I'm not a pedophile.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: What. On earth?!
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Different social mores, whatever. It's weird.
Lauren: They were still not getting married at 13, so it still would've been weird in my brain for him to be in love with her at 13 because that was not the age at which you're presented to court. It's not an age that's acceptable to be married off to someone.
Emily: And he was a whole like, late twenties, 30 year old man.
Lauren: Sir, you have literal women in front of you.
Emily: Literal, actual women.
Lauren: Who are your age.
Emily: Why didn't you snap up Ms. Taylor, huh?
Lauren: Oh, look. Wait a second, because that deserves some consideration. not just like any woman who's, like, in his social circle, but as far as people who he saw every day.
somebody who was clearly like intelligent and empathetic and like just a lovely person to be around was right there the whole time. she was good enough for Mr. Weston. So what gives Knightley?
Emily: I'll never forgive him for this.[00:08:00]
Lauren: No, it's really, that's very difficult to move past.
Emily: Yeah. And we did have a conversation about, back in Sense and Sensibility, the age difference between Marianne and Colonel Brandon.
because she's 17, he's--
Lauren: 35?
Emily: 34. 35. Yeah. Roughly twice her age, I think. But that weirdly I have less of a problem with because they have known each other for so little time. . Whereas Knightley saw a 13 year old Emma and was like, Hmm, that's the one, and waited until she was 21. I don't know, man.
I don't know if I'm ever gonna completely wrap my head around it.
Lauren: I just wish that that paragraph-- cuz I always love a good retrospective when the couple has finally admitted their feelings for one another and then they can go back and say like, oh, well I loved you since this day and this was, you know, An interaction that really solidified the way that I feel for you and I thought you had no idea or could never feel the same way. I live for those conversations.
If he had just said, even gone back, you know, three years to when she was 17, this would be lovely. It would be a great little heart to heart, sweet little moment like, ah, yes. You know, like you were starting to become a woman and I started to see you differently and whatever. Like Regency era 17, I'll-- you know, we'll gloss over that. We'll give it a pass. Same thing with like Marianne and Colonel Brandon, where by 21st Century standards we're looking at him like, eh, but , this is 200 years ago. Social standards were a little bit different. If it had been that, I would've been happy with it. Why did you have to go back another four years to 13? Why?
Emily: Like, come on. in everything else. They're so well-matched. Their, like, intelligence. Their wit their tempers, their personalities, all mesh very well. They're clearly going to have a lot of fun in their marriage, but just that one thing ruined it.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: Why Knightley? Why? [00:10:00] All right. I feel like we've gone on long enough with this.
Lauren: Think, I think--
Emily: we're not giving him a pass now, but we need to move on.
Lauren: The one redeeming quality is that iconic line from last section, "if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."
Emily: That's very true.
Lauren: Ugh, such a good line.
Emily: Excellent.
Lauren: But anyway, moving on. Speaking of Knightley being whipped for Emma, he's volunteered to move to Hartfield because he knows that Mr. Woodhouse would be absolutely beside himself if Emma were to leave. Emma doesn't really feel as though she can leave her father. that's one of the reasons why she had promised never to marry because she doesn't really feel as though she can leave her father with all of his various ailments and oddities.
and Mr. Knightley knows this because he has, you know, very intimate knowledge of their family and how it works and what the relationship looks like. And he says, okay, I really want this to work. I will move here. I've already thought about it. I know how it's gonna work. I want you to be happy. I want your dad to be happy.
Lauren: I want this to be a harmonious marriage, so I'll just move. Whipped.
Emily: Absolutely. Completely hopeless.
Yeah. I mean, it's like, I know it's not quite as dramatic as like giving up your last name, but it feels like the 21st century equivalent of like a man changing his name instead of a woman changing her name.
Lauren: Like, I know this is what the convention is that you're supposed to come with me to my home, but I'm going to come over here.
Emily: Well, by the conventions of the time and by, you know, expectations for inheritance and stuff because their landed gentry. that's, I like, I haven't done any research on it. I don't wanna say it's unheard of for a man to move to his wife's house instead, but he's, he's also the, the preeminent landowner.
of the area, so, it doesn't seem like he's like actually giving up Donwell, like, he's not about to sell the farm or whatever. but yeah, changing his residence like that is, unexpected. [00:12:00] Emma is musing on whether or not Donwell will still go to her nephew, but I don't think the John Knightleys were moving in.
I mean, it, it seems like Knightley will just continue to administer Donwell, he'll just live at Hartfield.
Lauren: Yeah. That was something that was funny to me because, Emma was able to kind of reevaluate her past opinion of how terrible it would be if Donwell were not to go to her nephew and realizes that she was really only upset about it because she thought that Jane might have been the chosen one to be Mr. Knightleys wife. But now that it's her and it's her potential offspring who might disinherit her nephew, she doesn't really care all that much.
Emily: Oh girl.
Lauren: I mean, that's honest.
Emily: Yeah. Emma has become significantly more introspective by this point. But, she is certainly not without flaw.
Lauren: No. No, she's not. And nor should she be.
That's true. aside from Emma and Knightley, and their at this point still secret engagement, which is not really shared with everyone. we also get a scene, which is equally irritating and entertaining. Where Emma goes to call on Jane Fairfax and in the Bates, and Mrs. Elton is there when Emma arrives and she is determined to make sure that Emma knows that. She knows something Emma doesn't know, even though Emma knows the whole story, but Mrs. Elton doesn't know that, and so she just keeps making all these inside jokes with Jane and Emma, to her credit, does not rise to the bait.
Emily: That-- honestly, I don't think I would've been as strong as Emma on that one because Mrs. Elton keeps starting to say something and then going, oh, but I shouldn't say! and like winking at Jane and making comments when she thinks Emma can't hear. It's so infuriating. I hate this woman so much.
Lauren: She makes a big show of folding up a letter and putting it away as Emma comes into the [00:14:00] room and saying, you know, I'm sure things with Mrs. S are all settled now and then makes a little side comment to Jane, like, you see, I didn't actually say any names, right? Like, I'm being very discreet. No honey.
Emily: Emma probably knows more of the story than she does because she has read all of Mrs. Weston's letters.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: Directly from Frank.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: I can almost guarantee that Jane has told Mrs. Elton only enough to be able to break her governess contract.
Lauren: Exactly. But Mrs. Elton loves to be the center of attention, and she also needs to know that she's the most important person to everyone around her, and she's not going to pass out this opportunity to make Emma feel small.
Without even realizing that all she's doing is making herself look ridiculous, because Emma knows more than she does. Honestly, I feel bad for Jane in this whole interaction too. It says that she keeps looking at Emma and they're exchanging glances that make it obvious that Jane really wants to speak directly to Emma and Mrs. Elton keeps preventing her from doing so. It's like those looks you share with your friend in the room where there's somebody who just won't stop talking and you look at each other like, I'm so sorry. I really do. I'm trying to speak to you, but it's just not happening right now.
Emily: They do at least get a moment at the very end of the visit after, after Mr. Elton has showed up and complained about how he walked all the way to Donwell Abbey and then Mr. Knightley wasn't even there. My God. This couple is just insufferable.
Lauren: And this is also after, Mrs. Elton says, oh, no, no, he's going down to. To the inn to go have a meeting with Mr. Knightley and Mr. Weston and so and so, and Emma says, no, that's tomorrow.
Are you getting your days confused? Like, Mr. Elton's gonna have a hot walk if he's going all the way to Donwell Abbey. And Mrs. Elton says, no, no, no. I, I can't be mistaken. That's ridiculous. I'm sure it's today. And then Mr. Elton shows up mad as hell because like Emma said, he had this hot walk to Donwell Abbey and Mr. Knightley wasn't even there and his wife is still trying to correct him after saying how much of a perfect wife she is because she's been sitting here dutifully waiting for him, for her Lord and master [00:16:00] to return.
Emily: She uses the phrase Lord and master twice. I hate it so much.
Lauren: We're not even being like, we're not over-emphasizing what she say.
She literally says, Lord and master. And she tries to say, no. No, dear, aren't you coming from the inn? Isn't that where you went? He goes, no, that's tomorrow. Anyway! And Emma's just sitting there smiling to herself like, mm-hmm. . . That's what I thought.
Emily: But she does get a moment of, it seems like genuine friendship with Jane as she's leaving. And Jane, poor Jane apologizes for having been so cold and Emma's like, no, no, no, no, you're good. You're fine. I completely understand now why you were acting like that. , it makes me kinda sad that they're not gonna get the chance to like actually be close friends because Jane's about to go off to Enscombe.
Lauren: Yeah. It does seem like they at least have like a couple months ahead of them to forge a friendship. But then, like you said, she'll be moving and they'll be separated by distance, so they wouldn't be able to have the same kind of close friendship as they would if, if Jane were to stay put. But it does seem like they have some genuine friendship forming.
Oh my gosh. Shall we talk about what Mr. Knightley shares with Emma?
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: Go for it.
Emily: So Harriet has gone to London. She's staying with the John Knightleys for a little bit while she is seeing a dentist for a tooth that has apparently been bothering her for a while.
Lauren: Just, okay.
Emily: Yeah, sure, whatever. But while she's there, Robert Martin has to go to town for some business, and Mr. Knightley had sent along a piece of news for his brother, with Mr. Martin. And so they are thrown into proximity and Mr. Martin proves himself to be a charming and level-headed young man. The Knightleys really seem to like him, and he gets to speak to Harriet again.
Lauren: And he [00:18:00] proposes marriage to her again, and this time she accepts.
Emily: I'm so happy for them.
Lauren: this is the marriage that is just like the most, I think, pure of the three matches we get at the end here. Just like, two happy, like, empathetic, caring people who just want to love one another, and it's very sweet and I'm happy that they get their happily ever after.
Emily: They're so wholesome.
Lauren: They really are. And Emma's also thrilled to hear this because the one thorn in her side since getting engaged to Knightley is knowing that her happiness is going to make Harriet even more upset.
And Harriet kind of knows, because Emma wrote to her about it in a letter, but they have not really spoken about it face to face, and Emma's been dreading it. So it was admittedly relieved when Harriet went to London for her tooth because it meant that she had a reason not to be inviting Harriet up to Hartfield, and people didn't have to wonder about why they weren't spending so much time together.
And so now, Emma can be happy for her friend and also selfishly happy for herself because she's not worried about if her happiness is going to be twisting the knife in Harriet's side.
Emily: It does kind of make me wonder if -- and this is probably unconscious on Harriet's part because she is not a clever girl.
But--
Lauren: --bless her heart--
Emily: if, if her lofty attachments had in part been because she knew they couldn't happen. And she was still attached to Mr. Martin. Because if you have a crush on someone who is completely out of your league, like absolutely no way is that ever gonna happen, then you don't have to completely give up on that other person
Lauren: That's true.
Unattainable is safe in a way.
Emily: Exactly. Yeah. Because they're never actually gonna propose to her. So maybe, maybe. she was subconsciously holding out hope.
Lauren: Yeah. I think in previous conversations with Emma, it was very much the lady doth protest too much when she was saying, oh, you [00:20:00] can't believe me in danger of still being in love with Robert Martin now, can you? Yes, we can.
Emily: Honey, yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Emily: because you're perfect for each other. They're gonna have so many cute little babies.
Lauren: Oh my gosh. Just running around on a farm.
Emily: Oh my God.
Lauren: Living their best country lives.
Emily: I do love that Mr. Martin comes up to Hartfield to be introduced.
Lauren: And Emma quite likes him.
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: Now that she's no longer scheming and she can--
Emily: --prejudiced against him.
Lauren: Yes. And she can actually, you know, take the time to get to know him without trying to make sure Harriet only speaks to him for 30 seconds at a time. She realizes he's actually quite likable.
Just reminded of when she dropped Harriet off at the Martins and came back for her in the carriage in 15 minutes.
Emily: never letting that go.
Lauren: Look at the growth.
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: Look how far she's come.
Emily: although maybe not as far as we would've liked her to because she is still to some extent, thinking of Harriet as almost an accessory. you know, Harriet's, just the one little thorn in her perfect happiness with Knightley, and now Harriet is perfectly paired off with someone who it turns out is actually quite suitably matched to her level of respectability. because it turns out that Harriet's father is just a tradesman.
Lauren: That's it.
Emily: Who could have guessed?
Well, certainly not Emma, because then she goes, oh my goodness, I was really going to match her with Mr. Elton, with, even with Frank, I could never! Like that. With the illegitimacy, without the nobility to bleach it a little bit would've been a terrible stain. Emma please, no one else thought that.
Lauren: You were the only person who thought that was possible.
No one thought that she had nobility in her parentage. just you.
Emily: Poor sweet Harriet Smith.
Lauren: She does her best.
Emily: She [00:22:00] does.
Lauren: And you know what? Her best is good enough for Robert Martin. Robert Martin loves her just the way she is, and they're going to be brilliantly happy together.
Emily: He loved her. Before Emma tried to take her and make her something she wasn't.
. They deserve each other in the best possible way.
Lauren: O T P.
Emily: Yes. Favorite couple out of the book.
Lauren: Oh, speaking of couples. Frank Churchill does come back and, has a conversation with Emma where she is finally able to kind of see, oh, this man's annoying. like, you know, I'm happy for Jane, but she's now of course comparing him to Knightley and Knightley comes out the superior man of the two when it comes to maturity and how he carries himself because Jane is mortified, because now that everything's out in the open and everything is worked out, Frank is joking about all of the past, you know, indiscretions that they had to commit in order to get to this point.
And he's pointing out, oh, haha. I remember when we were making jokes about Mr. Perry, or remember Emma when you thought this person was secretly in love with Jane and Emma is embarrassed because she's like, oh, I'd really rather not remember that. But Jane is even more embarrassed. She's trying to act as though she doesn't hear anything that he's saying, but she does.
And she even says, like, I know we all know, but do you have to bring it up? Do you have to call attention to it? Like just let it go. Just obnoxious.
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: Charming, but obnoxious.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Is that everything already.
Lauren: I do believe so. Other than, Mrs. Elton being very underwhelmed by Emma and Knightley's wedding.
Emily: Not enough satin or lace.
Lauren: No, not nearly enough.
Emily: How dare they?
Lauren: It's really just a sad affair.
Emily: I really wish that we could have gotten Emma's commentary on her wedding.
Lauren: That would've been lovely. Yeah. Especially because at that point in Emma's growth, you know, she would not have held back on the snark either.
Emily: oh, not at all. Would've been roasted. [00:24:00]
Lauren: Without mercy. Yeah, I think, I think that's everything.
Emily: Did you, did you have anything more to say on our theme of sharing?
Lauren: I think really just all of the aspects I pointed out before is like Jane and Emma are able to share confidence. people are able to share what once were secrets with one another. Lots of sharing information that happens here and I guess sharing of material wealth as well or of homes. So Knightley is moving into share Emma's home and Emma's life and to share in her space rather than her sharing in his.
And that's something that really stood out to me as well as something that was special. Also Mrs. Elton just sharing all Jane's business.
Emily: this woman.
What about you? you pretty much got everything that I would've said.
Lauren: Yeah. I think this was, a straightforward theme, but also not something that necessarily gives us a lot to work with as far as discussion.
Emily: Mm-hmm. I think because it is so straightforward. it's just. It's right there.
That's, that's what they spend the whole section doing.
Lauren: And it's the end. So it's just an interesting section to have where there's, by nature, not a lot of conflict to dive into.
Emily: Definitely.
Lauren: Thank God. Can you imagine if we had more conflict in these last four chapters?
Emily: I do not want another Mansfield Park!
Lauren: We're going right up until the end.
Emily: No more endings like that, please. Anyway.
Lauren: Anyway, back on the topic of Emma, what was your historical context for today?
Emily: Well, I'm glad that we brought up Mrs. Elton so much.
Lauren: Oh, good.
Emily: Because my topic is based on that very pointed mention of her purple and gold reticule.
Lauren: Yes. So, I'm back on my textile nerd bullshit to talk a little bit, just a little bit, This is a short one. Because, you know, it's our final section. Keep it upbeat, keep it moving. keep it cute.
Emily: Yeah. wanted to talk a little bit about the history of purple dye.
Interesting. because [00:26:00] it, it is surprisingly interesting.
purple dyes, natural dyes have been around prior to the synthetic era for millennia. You know, back into the, the multiple hundreds BC, but it was really hard to create them and to maintain them in textiles, which made them super duper expensive, which is one of the reasons why purple is like the color of royalty.
in antiquity, there were a couple of different ways to achieve purples depending on what area of the world you were in and therefore what natural resources you had access to. So the most famous ancient purple was Tyrian Purple, which was produced in the Mediterranean by extracting mucus glands from the spiny Murex snail.
Lauren: ...okay.
Emily: Yeah, it's the first time I learned that. I was like, hang on, excuse me. What? This is, this is snail barf. It is.
Lauren: Oh, so how do you spell Tyrion Purple? Because I hear Tyrion and I think Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones.
Emily: Fair enough. It's T Y R I A N.
Lauren: Oh, okay. So quite close.
Emily: Yeah. So, the cent-- one of the major centers of production was Tyre, I guess is how it's pronounced, which is in modern Lebanon.
that's spelled t y r e.
Lauren: Got it.
Emily: So, sorry, I wasn't expecting to have to say the name of the city, so if I have mispronounced it, I am deeply sorry. but yeah, so. It would take thousands and thousands of snails worth of this mucus to produce enough dye for just a single length of cloth, which is hundreds of hours of labor, to extract these snails from the sea to, you know, break open the shell, remove the snail, remove the gland, and then have to process the actual.
it was insanely expensive, [00:28:00] but its most prized quality in the dye was not necessarily the hue itself, although purple was rare. it was the vibrancy of it and the fact that it was, color fast, so it didn't fade over time as much as some of the other ways to achieve purple. in Mesoamerica and in Polynesia there were similar sort of sea creature based purples.
the Maya and Aztecs were able to create purple from a, a different sea snail from the Pacific coast. Polynesians, were using sea urchins, but there were also non snail purples available to the ancients, and to people, closer to Jane Austen's time. there was in ancient China, a purple crowell plant that was used to achieve purple dyes, but it didn't adhere very well to fabrics.
Emily: It didn't, really soak into the fibers as well. And so that was expensive because it took so many dips in the dye vat to achieve a vibrant color. There was also a lichen called archel or Dyer's moss, which could be combined with an ammoniac like urine. Unfortunately. To make purple. There's a lot of urine in the history of fabric dying.
It's unfortunate.
Lauren: Interesting.
Emily: It's a readily available ammoniac. It's a, A fixative.
Lauren: That it is.
Emily: Yep. In Europe, once you got to the, the Renaissance and beyond. Once contact was made with the New World, they started importing log wood from Mexico, which, depending on what mineral additives were used, could produce blue, red, black, or purple.
But it was another very fugitive dye, and so it washed out easily. It faded easily with [00:30:00] use. There were some less expensive purples that could be produced from basically combining red and blue dyes. so you have to dye one color first, either red or blue. Red was usually for like common people achieved using matter.
If you were more upper class, you could get a more vibrant red using, kermes beetles. Blues would come from wode or from indigo. And so you had to dye one color first and then dye it the other, and you didn't have as much control over what the final product would actually look like as you did if you were just creating, a, a straight purple.
super cheap purples could be made from stuff like blackberries or mulberries, but that like, just washed out. You weren't gonna get a vibrant color from that. You weren't gonna get a staying color from that. So it was these really rare, versions of purple dyes that became, you know, so expensive, so lauded.
Emily: They were used by, you know, kings and emperors and senators and popes and stuff like that. in the 19th century, archil, that Dyer's Moss that was used by ancient Greeks and Hebrews, regained some popularity because of the introduction of that sort of half morning idea. But it was actually in the mid 17 hundreds when the first synthetic purples were developed.
There were two that appeared very close to one another. Cudbear, which was, developed in Scotland, and French purple, which was French. they were both developed from extracts from that, Dyer's Moss lichen. But because of the processing they went through, they were more stable than natural purples.
So it's possible, I don't know, Mrs. Elton could have had her reticule dyed in something like that, but it's, it's such an interesting reference to me because it [00:32:00] so specifically calls out her golden purple reticule. And it seems like it's such an ostentatious accessory for the priest's wife.
Lauren: Right, exactly.
And I mean, she's an ostentatious woman.
Emily: Truly she is. If we had to use one word to describe her, ostentatious would be in the running.
Lauren: It truly would be. That is fascinating. I always wonder how people figure these things out. How did you, how did you come by the knowledge that a snail's mucus got you a vibrant purple?
Emily: What kind of accident did you have to fall into?
Lauren: I just, I can't, I'm fascinated by that. How did you figure this out?
Emily: So many things about like, history in general. Yeah, but historical textiles too. I'm like, who was the first person, like who invented knitting? How did you sit down with a couple of needles and like loop a string around and then go, oh, hey, that's a nice stretchy fabric.
Let's use that for socks. Like what?
Lauren: I wish I knew. It's like the, the journey of purple also reminded me of, that iconic Devil Wears Prada monologue that Meryl Streep delivers as Miranda Priestley, where she's talking about cerulean.
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: How it has trickled down from the high fashion runways to the unfortunate bargain bin where our protagonist fished it out of.
Thank you for that context. That was really good.
Emily: You're very welcome.
Lauren: As one of the people who, used to love purple an unhealthy amount, I feel like that's kind of just how things go.
Emily: Used to?
Lauren: Okay. It was worse.
Emily: you, you, you do have less of a percentage of purple
Lauren: I do now.
Emily: Surrounding you now.
Lauren: Yes. I did just buy another purple planner, but the percentage has gone--.
Emily: Whatever, planners are one of those things, you can have as many of them in your favorite colors as you want. Like that's not weird. If like every single item in your house is one color, that gets a little odd. But you're good.
Lauren: Thank you.
Emily: You look purple a normal amount.
Lauren: Thank you. I now like purple a normal amount.
my nickname in fifth grade that my fifth grade teacher gave to me was purple because every accessory I owned was purple. So for, for one of [00:34:00] those people who either you know where the switch is, like either you love purple and you make it your whole personality or you don't like it at all. I was the whole personality person, so I really appreciated this context of my favorite color.
Emily: I'm so glad. I cannot wait to hear what you have for our pop culture connection today.
Lauren: I, okay. So sharing is not something that easily translates into pop culture. So I was thinking more about the concept of like, happily ever after, since that's the, nice little tied up in a bow ending that we get at the end of this book.
And I was thinking about how, you know, the Happily Ever After as a trope. That of course comes from like fairy tales and things like that and the, 'and they live happily ever after'. But it's also now a feature of genres like romance, where it is a necessary element to the story. And without it, you can't be considered part of the romance genre.
If there is no happily ever after at the end of the book, it's not a romance. Full stop. It's something else. In partnership with that, I was also thinking about how there is a trend towards denigrating happy endings in fiction, and saying that because they're not serious, that they're less deserving of praise or being engaged with critically.
Because serious fiction and good fiction is something that has an ambiguous ending or that is realistic in its ending, where, you know, real life doesn't just end at a happily ever after. And so, Quote, unquote real fiction-- the heaviest air quotes I can muster-- you know, it's either ambiguous or it's a bittersweet ending, or, it's a plain depressing ending because you want to be true to life or something like that.
And lo and behold, shocker, usually the people who are writing those books are men, not exclusive to men. However, because that is how the publishing industry has tended to work and tended to publish and tended to uplift as the titans [00:36:00] of the medium. A lot of times people who write those books with that kind of convention in mind are men, and women who are of course dominating the romance genre, which mind you is propping up the entire publishing industry.
Romance makes up a giant percentage of sales and publishing would not exist if people were not buying and reading romance novels, but it's denigrated as something as less than or less worthy of praise or not as complex or not a good example of the craft of writing, and a lot of that has to do because it's women who are writing it because misogyny just tends to warm its way into everything.
And so I have my defense today as my pop culture protection, the defense of the Happily Ever After.
Emily: Yes. Let us hear it.
Lauren: Because I don't think that there's anything wrong with allowing your characters to be happy. And in like Austen novels as well, there's a range of different endings. So there's this one in Emma where, you know, we have a happy tied up with a bow.
Like at the end we have two weddings have taken place, one is going to take place, all the characters are happy, blah, blah, blah. Mansfield Park, where it's like they had to work for a little bit, everything is tied up in a bow, but it's not like this joyous celebration as we see in Emma. But she also kind of plays with her characters a little bit in how neatly she's going to tie their endings in a bow.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with just allowing your characters to just be happy at the end, just so there's nothing wrong with allowing yourself to be happy, like joy and pursuing joy can be radical like there. . there are a million things in the world that are telling us not to be happy or that have been completely erected in order to prevent us from seeking or finding joy, especially depending on whatever intersecting identities you hold that make it even more difficult for you to find joy.
And so I just want to leave us with this quote [00:38:00] from Audre Lorde, Queen of my heart.
Yes. which is caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. I will die on the hill that writing and enjoying and reading Happily Ever Afters is an act of self-preservation and it's an act of joy.
And that act of joy is political warfare. Be happy because society does not want you to be and write and read your happily ever afters, regardless of what the industry says is the right thing to create. That's it.
Emily: I'm applauding you mentally. Yes.
Lauren: I just think it's ridiculous that people try and crap on happily ever.
Why? Why are you crapping on things that bring people joy?
Emily: And I hate the argument so much that it's not realistic. Like it's-- it-- it's choosing to end a narrative at that certain point, right? Like you could choose a random point in my life where I was really happy and stop telling the story right there and say that's a happily ever after.
But, It's fiction!
Lauren: Every novel in the realism movement struggled with endings because they were trying to be realistic, but there is no realistic ending because life doesn't just end. So you may as well end your narrative, like you said, at a point where everybody is happy. Why not?
Emily: Yeah.
Lauren: You, you can also write a story where the entire point is to leave things ambiguous or up to the reader's interpretation, or sometimes your characters just aren't following arcs that lead them to have happy endings.
And that is the point of the story. That's fine, but that doesn't mean that because somebody chooses to end a narrative at a high point in their character's life that their craft is somehow less than.
Emily: And people engage with media for so many different reasons. Like I love a Happily Ever After when I'm in certain moods.
. But there are also times where I wanna read something where I know everyone's gonna die horribly.
Lauren: Sometimes I want to be challenged. Sometimes I want escapism.
Emily: Exactly.
Lauren: Sometimes the world is trash and I would like to go somewhere where the narrative is psychologically safe because I know there's going to be a fall in the middle of the third act that's going to be immediately followed [00:40:00] by a happily ever after.
Emily: Yes.
Lauren: I need the psychological safety of that romance structure sometimes, because I just need to know that everything's going to work out.
Emily: I'm nodding so hard, I'm gonna hit my head on the microphone. Yes, yes. Sometimes you, sometimes you want media that is going to make you engage with hard topics and, and feel things that are deeply outside your comfort zone. And sometimes you just want to sit in a little mental hammock with a nice little mug of cocoa and just know that everything's gonna be okay, because sometimes you really, really, really need that.
Lauren: Yeah. And sometimes those books challenge me in ways that I didn't expect either.
Like I am still open to different perspectives, or I think of things differently without having to be depressed as I'm reading.
Emily: Yeah. There's so much work that can go on between the covers even when, you know, there's a happily ever after coming. I mean, Talia Hibbert's books kind of did that for me.
and I hadn't read a lot of romance before, before I got to her books, but there was so much like grappling with for some characters grief, or grappling with chronic illness or just trying to figure out who you are as a person. Like there's, there's so much that goes on and that, that is independent of genre.
Emily: That's just one of the tools that we have. That's, that's just one of the things that we use fiction as a tool for.
Lauren: Exactly.
Emily: Is processing the human experience. I have a lot of feelings about fiction!
Lauren: Because it's a gift!
Emily: It is!
Lauren: We are wired to tell stories. It's why we've been telling stories as a species since the dawn of time, whether written or oral or performed.
Like, we like stories. They make us happy. Find the stories that make you happy and then reread them a million times if that also makes you happy.
Emily: There is, there is nothing [00:42:00] lesser about knowing that something is going to lift you up and purposefully choosing that. if all you read is romance novels, because you just need a happy ending every time.
Good for you, good for you knowing what you want, and doing that instead of, you know, giving in to the people who say that you shouldn't.
Lauren: And again, thank you for bankrolling the people who say that you shouldn't because the books that they're reading would not exist without the monetary contributions of the romance genre.
that is unstated fact of publishing. People like to denigrate romance very often and yet, their self serious novel about the professor who falls in love with the undergrad would not exist without romance.
Emily: Long Live the happily ever after. I will defend it with my life.
Lauren: The end. And the podcasters lived happily ever after.
Emily: I guess it's time for our takeaways now.
Lauren: I believe so. You remembered!
Emily: I did. And I have to go first now.
Lauren: You do.
Emily: I think my takeaway very simply is that sharing can be an act of love.
Lauren: Hmm. I like that.
Emily: What's yours?
Lauren: I think just find your joy.
Emily: Timeless.
Lauren: Yep.
Emily: Well, I was about to go for the tarot deck, but...
Lauren: no tarot this time, we're done with the book.
Emily: We're done with Emma. Finally, I have read all of Emma.
Lauren: How many times have you stopped and started this before?
Emily: I think I only tried once before.
Lauren: Okay.
Emily: But I, I only got a few chapters in.
Lauren: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you finally come to the end and that we got to share this journey.
Emily: I know. I love sharing this experience with you.
Lauren: Oh, no tarot card this time, but we do get to share our thoughts on the entire book for next episode. So we are done with the chapters of Emma, but we're not quite done with the book yet. We'll be back again in our next episode with all of our final thoughts about the book.
Emily: And of course, [00:44:00] after that we will be playing six degrees of Austen again because we just can't give it up. It's too much fun.
Lauren: It's, it's a delight. Stay tuned for more.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be wrapping up our final thoughts on the whole of Emma, as well as giving some questionable advice to the characters in our segment advising Austen.
Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the full back catalog and links to our social media.
Lauren: If you'd like to support us and get access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon at ReclaimingJanePod.
Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy, and our show Art is by Emily Davis Hale.
Lauren: See you next time nerds.
Emily: You know, she's the kind of girl who writes her like future married name all over pieces of paper with little hearts around it.
Lauren: 100%. I think the only reason we never see those in her treasure box is she probably all burn, burned them all before she started being encouraged to form affections for Mr. Elton.
Emily: Yes. Yes. 100% agree.
Lauren: And she's also the type of person to do that. He loves me. He loves me not. With the flower petals.
Emily: Oh, she is.
Lauren: She's so, you know, she did that at the farm. You know, she was out there one day just by herself, mumbling. He [00:46:00] loves me. He loves me not.
Emily: Protect this girl. Oh my God. At all costs.
No thoughts. Head empty.